Instagram hashtag

Aside from allowing you to share your moments with the world in form of videos, Instagram stories and photos, the social platform Instagram allows you to market your business and its branding concept. This is regardless of the size it has or the industry it occupies.

There are many ways you can achieve this, especially through the use of hashtags. Coming from Twitter, the use of hashtags has become popular thanks to the algorithm system.

The truth behind Instagram businesses

In fact, some interesting data on businesses that have Instagram accounts include 60 percent of users on the platform discovering products to buy, 80 percent of users following at least one business or brand profile, and 25 million businesses having their own Instagram accounts. There is also a statistic that points to the immense profitability of the platform – 200 million users on Instagram visiting at least one profile per day.

The platform also encourages businesses to take advantage of the good things it has to offer them. In fact, they have a blog that gives you tips on managing your business account and boosting your engagement statistics aside from deciding to try out Instagram likes free – but all of this comes at the expense of teaching businesses about hashtags and why they are so important.

In case you are wondering about this feature, then you are not alone. It is a common issue that many raise, especially when they are not used to the idea of using hashtags to promote their content. Read on for these tips.

All about hashtags and how they operate

Aside from some areas that will determine the performance of individual profiles, including understanding and responding to engagement and algorithm. It remains important therefore, to understand the nature of Instagram hashtags and how they operate.

The simple meaning of a hashtag is a tool that allows you to engage with wider audiences, since they will rank your content in the news feed on Instagram.

When you do not use hashtags or use irrelevant ones, your posts will not get the recognition they deserve aside from the followers you have – and with the introduction of the algorithm, it is not a guarantee all your followers will see what you post.

What is the strategy you should use for businesses?

Before you begin to use hashtags to market your posts, it is better to start off on a research on hashtags. This is similar to searching up keywords on Google, as you can get some keywords that are relevant to your niche, business, service, product or industry. Note all these words down, particularly the top ones (since they are the most popular).

When you are starting out, you will usually see two Instagram hashtag types in terms of business – exposure hashtags and branded ones.

Exposure hashtags

Also known as trending hashtags, they are the ones making it easier for you to stand out from other businesses in your industry. After all, it is very difficult to look different from others when you are so many on one platform.

Posting regularly on your account is one thing, but it is important to include hashtags to ensure your engagement levels are high even from people who do not follow you, as well as getting new followers. The best way to use this is using trending hashtags that grant you exposure to wider audiences.

The hashtag will give your posts greater exposure and bring attention to audiences that may be interested in exploring your posts, or going through your niche. This is because they can see your posts through following these hashtags, coming across the post within their Explore Page, or they can decide to enter keywords or hashtags in the search function.

At the end of the day, these hashtags will draw attention to your brand and increase its profits, making more users see your content.

Branded hashtags

These are more unique compared to trending hashtags, mostly relating to your company, a branded campaign or business. It can be an exciting venture to create and popularize them, as they have two purposes.

The first reason is increasing the general awareness of your brand, because you will need to include them once you create them. This can be through promoting user generated content, doing giveaways and contests, and using hashtag campaigns. One of the most memorable ones is the #ShareaCoke by the Coca-Cola Company.

The second reason is using it as a tool for analysis, because they allow you to analyze your social media actions. In addition, the use of social media tools and monitoring apps will also allow you to track some metrics on hashtags. These include influence metrics, engagement metrics, the social media reach of your post hashtags, as well as the social media mentions that your hashtag generates.

Make groups of important hashtags

This will allow you to save your time on adding hashtags manually to every post you put out. They are relevant hashtags that use certain categories of related hashtags and enable you to copy and paste them quickly in each hashtag post you make. There are apps you can use to help you with this task, such as Preview and TagsforLikes.

Avoid shadow bans by interchanging hashtags

Shadow banning is a very serious concern that affects many people, because your content does not appear in searches, which reduces your exposure significantly. To avoid this problem, it is important to change up your groups of hashtags.

The algorithm system is a very efficient system that will quickly see when you are using the same hashtags again and again. It will then block you from the system without your knowledge. Because of this, it is important to change your groups and the individual hashtags.

Get the optimum number of hashtags that work

There is no set rule about the number of hashtags you need to use per post, but you will need to test how your posts perform when you use different numbers.

Final thoughts

Hashtags are an interesting tool when you use them properly, but it is first important to understand how they work, as well as the strategies you can use to maximize them.